Witness Claims He Has No Knowledge of Srebrenica Crimes

Speaking in defense of Mladic, Karisik said he wasn’t aware of the existence of a plan to persecute Bosnian Muslim civilians from Srebrenica or of a plan to kill all members of the Bosnian Army. Karisik said he received no information about killings in Srebrenica and didn’t see any mention of them in Bosnian Serb police reports produced in July 1995.

Mladic, the former commander of the Bosnian Serb Army, has been charged with genocide of more than 7000 Bosniaks from Srebrenica in July 1995. Mladic has also been charged with the persecution of Bosniaks and Croats – which reached the scale of genocide in some municipalities – terrorising the population of Sarajevo, and taking UN peacekeepers hostage.

“I am not aware of any plan to forcefully act and kill prisoners,” said Karisik said during his cross examination by prosecutor Clarissa Pak.

Karisik was asked whether he knew that Bosnian Muslims were forcibly removed from Srebrenica after the UN safe area fell into the hands of the Bosnian Serb Army.

“I don’t know the real truth today. I wasn’t in Srebrenica and I didn’t have a role in those things…I don’t know that civilians were subjected to that. I know that there were Muslim soldiers who were imprisoned,” he said.

Karisik was then asked if he knew that thousands of Bosnian Muslims were killed.

“I don’t know that even today,” he said.

Karisik said at that time he didn’t deal with Srebrenica, but with the battlefield of Sarajevo which was “busy because of a Muslim attack.”

For the same reasons, Karisik claimed he knew nothing of the role of the Republika Srpska Special Police Brigade, which was transferred from Sarajevo to Srebrenica.

Karisik denied that this unit killed around 1000 Bosnian Muslim prisoners in the village of Kravica on July 13, 1995, which, according to the indictment and other verdicts, was the first of the mass executions of Srebrenica men.

Karisik said he heard of this crime “after the war, from the media.”

“I don’t know the details, since I wasn’t there,” he said.

On July 11, 1995, the day Srebrenica fell, Karisik said he met former Bosnian Serb president Radovan Karadzic. He said Srebrenica was not discussed during that meeting.

“I didn’t talk about Srebrenica, since I didn’t know what was happening. I talked about the Sarajevo offensive,” Karisik said.

He confirmed that he was in Zvornik on July 16, 1996, but only to deal with a police officer captured by Bosnian Army members who were trying to break through the woods around Srebrenica. Karisik said these Bosnian Army soldiers were “a great problem for Zvornik.”

According to the charges against Mladic, in the days around July 16, 1995, thousands of Bosnian Muslims were being killed by Bosnian Serb forces in villages around Zvornik.

Karisik will continue his testimony on Tuesday.